The Role
Lead merchant-side business development to build and scale Ascenda's lifestyle partner network across verticals (pets, fitness, beauty, wellness, fashion, gaming). Define merchant strategies, commercial frameworks and go-to-market plans, translate merchant insights into selling narratives, expand categories and geographies, and collaborate with product and technical teams to enable content delivery and personalization.
Summary Generated by Built In
Who we are
Ascenda is a global technology company on a mission to power the growth of financial institutions and merchants with premium rewards propositions that are effortless to deploy and loved by end users.
The world’s leading financial players leverage Ascenda’s rewards infrastructure to drive customer acquisition, usage, and retention. They include well-known global brands such as American Express, HSBC and Standard Chartered, dozens of local top-tier banks such as Capital One, ANZ, HDFC and ICBC, and successful challenger brands such as Revolut, Brex and Virgin Money (see ascenda.com/customers for full list).
So far, Ascenda has transformed the industry by:
- Bringing it all together: unifying the many fragmented elements needed for a world-class rewards proposition (points bank, campaign engine, travel portal, points transfer, pay with points, card-linked-offers, etc.) into a simple ‘all-in-one’ solution.
- Making it ultra-accessible: world-class rewards are now available to any financial institution of any size because Ascenda has made it so simple, so fast-to-deploy and so affordable. This has unlocked access for financial brands who were previously unable to consider a high-calibre rewards proposition due to the overbearing complexity and/or cost, opening up new client segments for Ascenda including emerging banks, fintechs and other non-bank financial providers.
Next up, Ascenda is further shifting the paradigm of customer engagement in financial services, making the competition irrelevant and growing the addressable market across these five dimensions:
- Breaking the decade-long enterprise software cycle
Today, the choice of rewards platform is generally a big hairy senior management decision or RFP for financial institutions, and once implemented remains stuck in place for years. Ascenda sees a future where any marketing manager can easily test a one-time tactical incentive with zero overhead or downside on its platform.
1) Shifting from selling software to selling guaranteed customer outcomes
Today, rewards platforms provide the mechanics for operating incentives, but not the brains. This puts the onus on the financial institution to design a strong value proposition and operate effective lifecycle marketing – with variable and uncertain outcomes. Ascenda sees a future where clients simply input their customer data and desired behaviors. The rewards platform then indicates the incentive investment required to achieve those goals. Intelligently setting the optimal value prop and campaign strategies to get there.
2) Tapping into hundreds of millions in incentive $s from non-card financial products
Today, the rewards program is generally owned by the cards team, while other product areas (e.g. deposits, lending, investments, insurance) are still using “random” ad-hoc incentives like cash rebates, prize draws, physical gifts – which are entirely generic and unpersonalized. Ascenda sees a future where every division GM is empowered to deploy their incentive funds via the Ascenda platform because it’s easy and significantly increases ROI.
3) Merging great rewards and lifecycle marketing into a single powerful solution
Today, financial institutions employ an array of disparate marketing tools, such as earn & burn rewards, card-linked offers, marketing automation, channel orchestration, personalization engine, transaction-based nudges, analytics platform, and so on. Ascenda sees a future where these converge into a single, highly intelligent lifecycle marketing engine that executes end-to-end. All the way from selecting the right personalized incentives for each customer to executing last-mile communications.
4) Transforming rewards content from being static to resonating at a deep human level
Today, the best rewards programs offer a broad selection of content, from airline miles and hotel bookings to physical goods. But the fundamental nature of those catalogues hasn’t changed over the past decade, and the onus remains on the user to plough through and self-select the right option. Ascenda sees a future where rewards content evolves to resonate with more intrinsic human motivations. Whether someone is a pet lover, a foodie, a hardcore gamer, or a travel enthusiast – presenting the right personalized reward that speaks to these deeper identities will transform customer behaviour.
To realize this ambitious vision, Ascenda is investing heavily in proprietary R&D across marketing capabilities, data science, AI, personalization and greenfield rewards content innovation. On a path to becoming the world’s most powerful loyalty marketing ecosystem.
Company Headlines
- Backed by Visa, Inc., Wavemaker Partners (VC) and Unigestion (PE)
- Sustained profitability
- 200+ employees, with dual HQs in Singapore and New York
- Diversity of genders, nationalities and personalities, with 50% women company-wide
The Role: Vice President Lifestyle Content Business Development
Level: Vice President
Location: New York
Reports to: SVP of Financial Institution Business Development
The Role:
Ascenda is building something genuinely new: a lifestyle content ecosystem that connects merchants across categories like pets, fitness, beauty, wellness, fashion, and gaming with the world’s leading financial institutions.
As VP, Lifestyle Content Business Development, you will own the merchant side of this business. Your primary focus is building and scaling the network of lifestyle merchant partners that sit at the heart of Ascenda’s coalition model, defining who’s in, shaping the commercial structure, and developing the go-to-market approach that sells this into financial institutions and banks.
This is a builder role. You’ll be creating from scratch, not inheriting a playbook. The brief will evolve, the verticals will expand, and the model will shift as we learn. You’ll need to move with it.
Your Impact
- Build and scale Ascenda’s lifestyle merchant partner network across multiple content verticals (pets, fitness, beauty, wellness, fashion, gaming, sports entertainment)
- Define the merchant strategy for each vertical; who to recruit, how to position the coalition model, and what the unique value proposition is for merchants in each segment
- Develop commercial structures and partnership frameworks that work for merchants and financial institutions alike
- Own go-to-market development for lifestyle content, working in concert with the BD, Financial Institutions counterpart
- Translate merchant and category insights into a clear, compelling selling narrative
- Drive the expansion of Ascenda's lifestyle content footprint identifying new merchant categories and geographies to enter as the programme scales
- Collaborate with the BD, Financial Institutions lead where merchant content strategy is part of the conversation
- Work closely with internal product and technical teams (who own integration and personalization infrastructure) to ensure merchant content can be delivered effectively through Ascenda’s platform
Who You Are
- Proven BD and partnership leader; you have deep experience managing complex, multi-stakeholder partnerships and closing commercial deals that required building relationships from scratch
- Track record of building partner ecosystems or commercial models from zero; not optimising what exists, but creating what doesn’t
- Experienced in a scale-up environment: you’ve developed and shipped new products or propositions and know what it takes to move from concept to market
- Deep background in advertiser-publisher relationships, merchant development, or content partnership ecosystems; you understand how to recruit and structure a merchant network
- Thrives when the brief changes and the structure doesn’t exist yet; you’re energised by ambiguity, not slowed by it
- Commercially minded with strong category instincts; you understand what makes a merchant segment tick and can build a selling message around it
- Strong communicator and storyteller who can sell a vision internally and externally
- Traditional loyalty and rewards experience is a plus
Why Join Ascenda?
Ascenda offers a unique opportunity to build a new product category within an established, high-growth platform. You’ll have the backing of world-class infrastructure and issuer relationships and the mandate to build something that doesn’t yet exist.
We offer competitive compensation, flexible working, comprehensive benefits, and genuine career growth in a team that moves fast and values hands-on ownership.
Ascenda is an equal opportunity employer committed to a diverse and inclusive workplace.
Skills Required
- Proven business development and partnership leadership experience managing complex, multi-stakeholder partnerships and closing commercial deals.
- Track record of building partner ecosystems or commercial models from zero (creating new programmes, not just optimizing existing ones).
- Experience in a scale-up environment, developing and shipping new products or propositions from concept to market.
- Background in advertiser-publisher relationships, merchant development, or content partnership ecosystems.
- Ability to define merchant strategy for verticals, recruit merchants, and structure commercial partnerships.
- Commercially minded with strong category instincts and ability to build compelling selling messages.
- Strong communicator and storyteller capable of selling vision internally and externally.
- Experience collaborating with product and technical teams to ensure merchant content integration and personalization.
- Comfortable operating in ambiguous, evolving briefs and adapting the model as the programme scales.
- Traditional loyalty and rewards experience.
Am I A Good Fit?
Get Personalized Job Insights.
Our AI-powered fit analysis compares your resume with a job listing so you know if your skills & experience align.
Success! Refresh the page to see how your skills align with this role.
The Company
What We Do
We believe that the companies who win in the market are those who build deep, long-lasting relationships with their customers. That's why we deliver loyalty as a service, and make customer engagement effortless for leading brands, with the world's most connective rewards ecosystem.
